Subscriptions

A subscription can be created in one of two ways. Either by a customer ordering a subscription based product through the shopping cart or by an admin adding a subscription to a customer account manually.

Creating a Subscription Based Product

Subscription based products are like normal products that can be displayed on your site and purchased through the shopping cart. To create a subscription based product simply add a product as you would normally and make sure to enter a value greater than 0 in the Subscription Period field. A subscription can also grant membership to particular user groups while it is active. To do this select the user groups you want it to subscribe to.

Adding a New Subscription Manually

To add a new subscription manually first go the user account for the customer you wish to add the subscription. At the top of the user account page you will see some links eg. Subscriptions - Add. Click on the Add link next to Subscriptions to create a new subscription for this customer. Once you click this link a new subscription with inactive status is created and you will be brought to the modify subscription page where you can modify the subscription details. The subscriptions page in the admin are lists all of your customers subscriptions.

Subscription Status

A subscription can have any one of the status settings below. Active Inactive The system can be set to check for expired subscriptions automatically and when an active subscription expiry date passes it will set the subscription to Inactive and queue an email notification in the mailer to be sent on to the customer. The system can also be set to email reminders at intervals prior to the expiry date.

Emailing Subscription Status to Customer

To email a user about their subscription click on their email address from any subscription related page. This will open the email user page with a contact form containing an email message template pre- populated with their subscription information and a link to view/renew the subscription.

Modifying/Renewing Subscriptions

Customers can renew subscriptions through their account area. When a customer renews subscriptions an order with pending status is created on the system with references for the renewed subscriptions. To modify a subscription click on the subscription id or the modify link to the right of the subscription you want to modify. To renew a customers subscription change the start date for the subscription, make sure the status is set to active and click save changes.

Deleting Subscriptions

You can delete subscriptions by selecting the checkboxes next to the subscription(s) you want to delete and click the delete selected button. Generally you should leave inactive subscriptions as it will allow the customer to renew them from within their account area but in some cases it might be preferable to delete them.

CMS Help - Subscriptions